


Runaways

by Arts_of_Selcouth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Gabriel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:18:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7086892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arts_of_Selcouth/pseuds/Arts_of_Selcouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucifer kills Gabriel, and Sam receives a mark on his hip that same day, like the one his brother has on his shoulder. One year later, Castiel reveals that the mark is a sign of shared Grace.</p><p>He also reveals that Gabriel needs that Grace, which he entrusted in Sam, to escape from Perdition. Without thinking twice, Sam goes down under to save what's left of the archangel who trusted him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Don't forget, you learnt all your tricks from me, little brother." 

He closed his eyes, because he knew what was coming next. He reached out to the black impala across the state, and tore a little of himself away, imparting it into the younger man. He wished he hadn't fought. He wished he'd just stayed a runaway. He wished a lot of things.

He managed to touch the man's hip for a ghost of a second before he felt the blade pull him back.

Then, the world turned a flash of white.

Then, there was darkness. 

Then, there was pain.

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

One year later-

His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and his hands were soapy and wet, scrubbing and cleaning the blood out of his favourite sweater. He might have to lose this one for good, he told himself grimly. He glanced up at himself for a moment, in the mirror above the sink, but the figure behind him caught his eye. 

"God...," he startled with annoyance, dropping the sweater into the sink with a splash, "Don't do that."

Castiel smiled to himself, like it reminded himself of something, "Hello, Sam."

"The one you share 'a more profound bond with' is in the other room." 

"I'm here for you, Sam."

Sam dropped his gaze, continuing his failed efforts to get the blood stains out, "So what's up?" 

"It's been a year, Sam. Have you told anyone about the mark?"

He froze, the sweater gripped in his hands under the running tap, "What mark?"

"Sam, the mark on your hip. The hand print, like the one your brother has on his shoulder. The one you presumably have told no one about."

"So who told you?"

"It's the Mark of the Holy- any angel could sense it. All those of heaven can cast it to share their grace, as I have cast mine into your brother, so I could bind him to me and pull him from Perdition. At that time, I felt it inappropriate to tell him that he shared my grace, so I left it at that."

"Does...does he know? And does it matter? It's been a year, and I don't feel that graceful."

Castiel cocked his head to the side, imitating an infuriatingly innocent puppy, "Are you not curious as to who cast his grace upon you?"

Sam gripped the sides of the sink- it was getting hard to concentrate, and his heart was beating unevenly. He wasn't afraid or worried, just uneasy. The sweater, he decided, was pretty much done for. The red was starting to seep into the water, bubblegum pink bubbles swirling against porcelain. Bubblegum pink... and chocolate wrappers, and candy bars... and bad pornos, and he knew exactly who had done exactly what. (Because for god's sake, it had been a year and he'd been poring through every ancient record and version of angelic mythology until he had gotten an answer, but no, not for one second had he wanted to believe it) 

(Because why would someone metaphysical like that choose something corrupted like him, when they'd barely spoken, barely met, and it barely made sense, and-)

"Sam," Castiel called out gently, in concern, as he stared at the reflection of the younger Winchester through the mirror, his eyes glazing over.

Sam chuckled humourlessly, "I swear, if it was Zachariah, I'll have to stab myself with that Angel blade."

Castiel shook his head.

"It was Gabriel."

Sam pulled the sweater out of the bubblegum water. 

"I know."

"How much do you remember about him?"

Everything. What did he forget? He remembered Dean dying over and over, and the strange sadness lingering in his sparkling eyes, as if Dean dying made the archangel feel less weak. He remembered the way he laughed, the way his faced moved when he was playing his part as Loki, and how exaggerated he could get. He remembered the way he protected them, stood in front of them, before they left him with Lucifer. He remembered barely caring about the archangel until he was gone. Then, it had kept him up at night, trying to recall if the other had done anything that wouls suggest why he trusted him. 

"Don't remember much... trickster, right?"

Castiel seemed hesitant, and he looked down, "Not much of one these days. I was seeking revelation, but i caught glimpses of him instead. At first, I couldn't make it out to him, from the scarring, but I managed to confirm his entity."

"Where...where is he?"

"He needs you now, Sam. He is in Perdition, a part of it I've never been to, and a part I'm not sure he can escape from in his broken state. He needs his Grace for that, all of it. Even the parts which he put in you, for safekeeping."

Sam pushed the door open, starting out into the cheap motel room. Dean was out, hopefully getting pie, which would take a while. He crashed onto the couch, "Why me? Why now?"

The angel's eyebrows were furrowed, "I cannot say why Gabriel chose you, but there must have been some level of compatibility or consent on your part, be it consciously or not. Your brother accepted my Grace on the grounds that he had no other choice, but you were in the position to disagree. Those trivialities aside," he went on, ignoring Sam's protests at his dissatisfying response, " my brother was for the most part destroyed. Lucifer went at him with the intent to kill, and had he not sent a part of himself to you, it would have been disintegrated as well."

Sam sat up, suddenly alert. Gabriel was alone, in Perdition, without his Grace. He had heard snaps and slivers of what it was like down under, from Dean, and if the archangels was down there among demons...

"It has probably taken Gabriel a year to recover from Lucifer's work, alongside...," Castiel winced, "whatever else those holding him have done. He is able to retake the Grace he left within you, and it shall act as a catalyst for him to regain whatever elae he has lost."

Sam knew why Castiel had come, and he knew that Castiel couldn't carry a Grace through Perdition himself. The last he wanted to do was to go down under, but it sounded like someone really needed him. For some reason, he'd been trusted and he wasn't going to screw that up.

"We have to now, before Dean gets back. You know he won't agree, but even if we take a year to find Gabriel, it'll barely be an hour on Earth."

The angel in the trench coat looked at him suspiciously, "You would do this for him?"

"Isn't that why you came from?"

"I came to bring you to realise what was asked of you, but not to ask of your service should you not-"

Sam felt his hipbone tingle, a phantom touch as he agreed, "I want this."

"I will warn you, he's not what you remember him to be. He barely revealed his true nature to you previously, and there's a good chance Gabriel will have forgotten you. It has been a century."

"He needs me."

Castiel nodded grimly, an arm on Sam's shoulder.

"Then let it be done."


	2. Chapter 2

Time was a concept, and he had to admit, it was a concept that he forgot after the first century.

One century in hell, ten months on earth. 

Ten months to Sam...

He used to play that game for the first few decades- what was Cas doing now? How about chucklehead and Sam? What was Chuck writing? Had Luci finished his tantrum? What was new on Dr Sexy MD? It had worked... for about 50 years. Then, whoever had been holding him had found a way to finally worm their way into his mind and fuck it all over. Turn his haven to dust, lay his dreams to waste, rust his last refuge. 

He didn't break though, even when he started to forget how Samuel Winchester looked, the curvature of his jaw, his fanciful bitch-face in all its glory. In his defense, and contrary to popular belief, he never really gave himself the luxury to look at Sam's face that often. He didn't like the idea of getting used to see a face like that. It was easier to stay away, more realistic to the ex-Trickster. He forgot what color flannels Sam wore too. Hell, he forgot about colors in general, because where they kept him it was dark.

Dark, and cold, and quiet, save for his screams.

Once, sometime around about 67 years in, he thought he heard Lucifer ("Brother, forgive me, brother I am so...so sorry"), and that had been the first voice in forever. His ears almost burned from their misuse, but then after, the silence resumed and he had put those words in the corner of his mind.

He refused to torture a soul. He'd played his little games with those that deserved it, but he saw children, crying men and screaming women and he saw how good they were and how pure and he knew what was right and what was wrong. He had the good grace to shoulder his own pain.

They broke his body first, the bones, the skin, the flesh, the nails, the organs and the joints... and the wings. Then they broke his mind, went through his brain and scrambled what was left of it. Then they broke his grac,e did everything they could to violate him in the most intimate way and in every manner he feared. 

He was an archangel, he was omnipotent and greater than the heavens and one of God's own sons (and they were there all the time, stripping him of his clothes, his skin, his face and he was crying for the first time in so long) He was the Trickster, the seductor and the Norse god of mischief who had conquered dynasties and galaxies (and they were peeling back his scalp, crushing through his skull and stroking his mind and reaching in it, pulling out every nightmare) He was the lover of the great Kali and the brother of Satan and the sword of the Lord and his was destined for immortality in Heaver (and they were pushing their palms into his stomach and he could feel them in his innards and he was so so scared and there was so much pain and he was begging) He was there when the great nations rose and fell and he was there when kings turned to dust and queens turned mad and princesses fell in love with princes ( and they were in him and it was hot and wet and he was ashamed and paralysed and whimpering and crying out and shaking and they just wouldn't stop and he had lost track of time)

He tried to think of Sam, the runaway like him, trying to escape who he was, who was too good and did what he did without ill-intent, who he needed. But when the pain came back, thinking about that man hurt to much and he pushed it to the back of his mind again.

And he was Gabriel, but after 120 years he could barely remember.

And when the man with the only grace he had left came to hell on the hundred and twentieth year, he could barely notice. 

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

"Cas, I know what I said about searching for a year, but preferably, I'd like to get back by the end of the day," Sam shuddered.

Castiel nodded, understanding the other's discomfort, both from his brother's plight, snippets of his own time in the cage and the painful screams that were echoing the halls. He disliked this particular dimension as well, as well as it's inhabitants. 

"Can't we ask Crowley?"

" He's in a better position than we are, and any businessman in a better position gets the better deal. We can't trust him on this."

"Where do we even start?"

"With the cage."

Sam's eyes narrowed in mistrust and disbelief, "What?"

"Sam, I know you dislike the contents of the cage," Castiel looked down, "but they are likely keeping such a powerful angel near a part as deep as the cage." 

Sam sighed, and ran a hand through his hair then down his face, collecting himself shakily, as he thought back to his last times in Hell.

"Okay."

There were mostly chains lining mouldy walls, and the overwhelming smell of copper-tinged blood which lined the airs. There were people her and there being tortured, with no Crowley in sight, as well as a few locked doors but as they walked further, nearing the cage, they saw less and less. It was sometime around there when Sam felt a nagging tinge at the corner of his mind, like a buzzing ache that wouldn't go away. 

"Ahhhh," he massaged his temples and leaned heavily against the wall, under Castiel's concerned glance... until the wall gave way, and Castiel pulled him back with inhuman reflexes before he tumbled down a spiralling dismal staircase.

"I'm guessing this wasn't a coincidence," Castiel sighed heavily, looking down into the darkness.

"I'm guessing not," Sam shot a thankful glance in Castiel's way, then started down the steps.


End file.
